


two a.m. in the foyer

by knightargents



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Horror, Dreams vs. Reality, Ghosts, Haunting, Horror, M/M, Mystery, Psychological Horror, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27321661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightargents/pseuds/knightargents
Summary: ash has been living over half a year with eiji in izumo. everything is finally quiet and peaceful. he's going to therapy, there's no one after them. their front door has three locks and he hasn't needed to pick up a weapon in the last four months. life is good.and then the dark figure visits ash every morning in his sleep, watching him from the shadows and dripping blood on his carpet.lapslock fic
Relationships: Ash Lynx/Okumura Eiji
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	two a.m. in the foyer

_the water’s up to my neck now, eiji._

ash had a secret.

in fact ash had many secrets. secrets that his gang knew. secrets they didn't. secrets only eiji knew. secrets even eiji didn't. but this one is something he’s mostly kept to himself. 

this secret comes every morning at 2:36 am and drips blood on his and eiji's carpet. this secret opens the front door even though ash knows ash  _ knows _ he locked all three of the locks and it drags its heavy feet through the hallway and the living room to stand in front of their bedroom door right where ash lays in bed and-

ash used to lay there and pretend he was asleep, pretend he didn't feel its eyes staring at him. he used to force his breath to come out slow and deep, synced them up with eiji to calm his frantically beating heart. but somehow it knew he was faking it. 

and every morning at 2:36 a.m. it would stand before their closed door. eiji has gotten used to ash's paranoia following him to izumo months ago. eiji was understanding and even suggested the fourth lock on the front door and the bat next to their bedroom stand, and kindly stayed silent when he came home one day to a bedroom lock. 

at first ash thought he was going crazy. yes he did therapy, yes he acknowledged his heavy PTSD, and yes he hasn't shot a gun in over six months. but in between the physical therapy from the hemorrhaging from the stab wound and getting his fake ID to sneak through japan's airways, his mind was never given a moment to rest. all he got was an aching stitched wound and his heart pumping blood. but how could he explain whatever the fuck happened during the silence in the dead of the night?

it got worse when it started to open their bedroom door. he doesn't know how. he doesn't want to think of how it opened a locked door. he doesn't want to remember the bone chilling feeling of seeing the lights from the living room from behind his eyelids flicker as he heard the door creak open and its footsteps on their carpet. the worst of all is that it just stands there and watches him. it never looks at eiji. ash doesn't know how he knows this but he does, somehow. he can  _ feel _ it’s eyes on him.

it got even worse when one day when he thought it left, he peeked open an eye and lifted his head and he SAW it. he gasped, loudly, and quickly shoved his face under the blanket and curled up next to eiji but it had moved ungodly quick. it leaned over their bed and he could feel its breath on the exposed part of his forehead. he couldn’t tell when it had left but he felt eiji shift next to him and tell him good morning in that deep sleep-soaked voice of his. 

after that something had changed. it got bolder. it opened the door every night and stood at the foot of their bed. he could hear it  _ breathing _ , but the sound was all wrong. it would come out almost tattered, the breath rattling around in its lungs, almost as if something was wrong with it’s mouth. at some point in the night it would walk back out and leave, everything seemingly in place except for the droplets of blood on their carpet that eiji never noticed, that ash would scrub at obsessively until they disappeared when eiji was at work. 

it wouldn't terrify him so much if whatever it was showed up on their security footage. there was nothing in their bedroom, but the camera set up in the hallway showed no signs of being tampered with after ash ran it through several programs. the lights never lit up. their door never opened. he fast forwarded through three days of footage only to come up blank.

ash sat back and pushed his laptop away, sweat beading on his forehead and feeling his heartbeat in his ears. there was no proof that he saw anything. 

but he knew what he saw. 

ash couldn’t stand being in the house alone. everything began to set him off. seeing the clean carpet made him feel dizzy. he even began dreading when eiji would come home, because it would mean soon they’d start their nightly routine and be in bed again, even though eiji being near him was the brightest part of his day. the lock didn’t do anything, and somehow he knew that the bat near the bed would be useless.

and suddenly it’s 2:36 a.m. again and it’s leaning over him breathing uneven breaths along his exposed ear. ash’s face is buried into eiji’s back, the blanket pulled up to cover his mouth while his eyes are screwed shut. he doesn’t think when he opens his mouth. 

“go away. leave me alone.  _ leave me alone. _ ” 

ash feels the breaths recede as it pulls back. its footsteps steady on the ground as it walks away, heading back to the entrance. the shock ash feels nearly drowns out his fear in that split instance. he doesn’t know what comes over him but he looks. his heart pounds, but he peeks. just a  _ small  _ peek, he tells himself.

a human shadow stands just outside the doorway to the bedroom, watching them. it’s naked chest is covered in wet blood but its head. oh god, it’s head. it’s as if something ran over its head multiple times. the side is caved in and the skin is pulled taught, dark purple from bruising while the entire thing looks deformed. its eyes jut out, broken nose and socket squeezing puss out of them. the jaw is broken but the worst of it is the top. where the forehead should be is just a messily jagged line with nothing above, cut. the skin peels down, nearly melted off the bone while it’s skull is crushed, oozing out liquid and blood down it’s face. ash has never seen anything like it and it makes him instantly nauseous. sleep deprivation has gotten the best of ash and his mind is not working like it normally would. and then, realization strikes ash. he sees it. he sees  _ him _ .

"...Shorter?" he calls out in a hoarse whisper. 

it doesn’t move. the lights from the living room behind it flicker aggressively, casting it and everything in shadows two, three, five, eight times before it stops, casting everything into black.

  
  
  
  


ash wakes up the next morning with no recollection of falling asleep. he nearly jumps out of bed when he does, breathing heavily as he stares at their bedroom’s open door. eiji isn’t in the bed near him, he’s not in their bathroom because the door is open and ash’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest and he can feel the back of his shirt sticking to his skin because last night was so vivid and he could feel the blood on his cheek still and shorter’s figure in the doorway and eiji isn’t here he’s not here but shorter was here but eiji isn’t he’s not here it took eiji it  _ took eiji _ -

“-ly awake skeepyhead?” eiji’s head pokes into the doorframe, jolting ash. 

“what?” ash says in shock, whiplash making his thoughts halt. 

eiji looks at him for a moment but then blinks the concern from his eyes. “i said, you’re finally awake, sleepyhead? cmon, get out of bed already, i made pancakes.” and then he disappears again, tinkering around in their kitchen. 

ash just stares at where he just stood. eiji said nothing about the blood on the floor, again. 


End file.
